₦airaland Forum

End time.

By the time the curtain fell on the 7th session of Nigeria’s National Assembly in June, one of the most prominent characters of that era, who retreated backstage as a member of the 8th session (after his party became a minority), is former Senate President, David Mark.
Mr. Mark, a retired army general, would be remembered for his ignoble role in deepening and institutionalising the culture of secrecy at Nigeria’s federal legislative body.
In 2003, total National Assembly budget was about N23.347 billion.
The next year, the figure rose to about N32.229 billion (2004) and then N55.422 billion in 2005.
Although the figure dropped to N39.810 billion in 2006, the allocations have remained on the upswing ever after.
Immediately Mr. Mark became Senate President in 2007, the National Assembly’s budget rose from N66.488 billion to a shocking N104.825 billion in 2008, before dropping marginally to N96.052 billion in 2009.
By 2010, while he was still in charge, the allocation had a geometric jump, skyrocketing to unprecedented levels to a peak of about N154.2 billion.
With the Nigerian public increasingly scrutinizing the spiraling annual allocations to the National Assembly, questions about why the lawmakers got so much, amid rising overheads in the national budget, became inevitable.
To block Nigerians from knowing details of how the National Assembly’s jumbo allocations are spent, and how much lawmaker’s earn in allowances, Mr. Mark’s leadership wrapped up the federal legislator’s finances in utmost secrecy.
In one master stroke of legislative brinkmanship, the National Assembly budget, hitherto open to public scrutiny, like those of all ministries, departments and agencies, suddenly became secret.
Details of the allocation were never made known, and Mr. Mark and his team resisted all efforts to pry it open.
By 2010, the National Assembly legislated to make itself member of an exclusive club of agencies whose budget details are never disclosed but whose finances are deducted en-bloc (first-line charge) via statutory transfers.
This group includes the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the National Judicial Council (NJC), the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Public Complaints Commission (PCC).
Agencies in this group receive their annual budgetary allocations in bulk without providing breakdown of expenditure details.
Under Mr. Mark’s leadership, details of the National Assembly’s N150 billion allocations remained secret, despite public outcry against it.
For the first time in several years, the federal lawmakers agreed to cut their jumbo allocation by 23.3 percent to N115 billion in 2015.
Yet, details of how the fund would be spent remained secret.
Disturbed by the trend, the Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CENSOJ), Eze Onyekpere, citing the Freedom of Information Act and Section 48 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, demanded budgetary and expenditure details from both the National Assembly and the Federal Ministry of Finance.
When Mr. Mark failed to grant the request, Mr. Onyekpere went to court.
After several adjournments, the court, on February 25, 2014, ordered the Minister of Finance to oblige the civil society group with details of all statutory transfers.
But Mr. Mark and the finance ministry ignored the order.
The closest anyone got to knowing how lawmakers spend Nigeria’s hard-earned money was the indication given by Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and current Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi.
Mr. Sanusi had said expenses by the National Assembly accounted for about 25 percent of the total overhead cost by the federal government.
Apart from allocations for salaries and allowances, Mr. Sanusi said all other items packed under different sub-heads in the appropriation bill consist mainly of expenses on the personal benefits of lawmakers.
According to the former CBN boss, the National Assembly under Mr. Mark perfected a curious system of “retiring” the huge allocation.
“There is an entire structure within the National Assembly whose job is to prepare different receipts and vouchers to cover every item in the budget,” Mr. Sanusi had said.
A review of the details of the National Assembly budget for 2009 highlights some items the lawmakers spend their huge annual budget on.
Out of a total appropriation of N106.64 billion for that year, recurrent expenditure was N101.39 billion, or 95 percent, allowing just N5.25 billion for capital projects.
Under the recurrent, overheads accounted for N87.69 billion, or 86.48 percent, with personnel cost allocated N13.69 billion, or 13.52 percent.
Apart from payment of salaries and other fringe benefits, which takes an average of about N10 billion, Mr. Sanusi said the bulk of the allocations were shared among members according to pre-agreed formula after allocations for such items as constituency projects, budget tracking, software, hardware, implementation and monitoring; NASS equipment; judgment debt; renovation projects; general goods and non-personal services; general travels and transport (local and international) as well as general training.
Other provisions include general utilities; general materials and supplies; general maintenance services; security vote, consultancy and professional services; insurance premium charges; fuel and lubricants; contingency; NASS programmed activities, NASS law magazine; media and Public Relations as well as miscellaneous expenses.
Mr. Mark stepped down from the leadership of the National Assembly in June. He would most likely be remembered more for the lack of accountability under his watch.
http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/186883-how-david-mark-doubled-national-assemblys-budget-and-enthroned-secrecy.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

Congrats my Prof.

Then the PDP and Gej must be stupid to generate what you claim to be the electricity we are enjoying and still leave Nigerians in darkness.

If only we can allow the Biafrans to go. I don't like the way some of them feel they are the best thing that have ever happened to Nigeria. South Sudan are regretting being on their own.

This is not Damaturu but Gombe central market. Stop deceiving people please.

These pictures are from the bomb blast in Gombe central market yesterday not Damaturu.

End time.

Thanks OP. I'm guilty of misusing the words.

The wailing wailers wouldn't like this prediction.

He's back now that Lagos state government assisted the wife right? Some men do not have shame.

A panic-stricken former President Goodluck Jonathan has sent former Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku, to plead with President Muhammadu Buhari not to launch an official probe of his administration.

Emeka Anyaoku and former President Goodluck Jonathan
Several sources in Abuja, including aides of President Buhari, briefed SaharaReporters exclusively about former President Jonathan’s dispatch of Mr. Anyaoku as an emissary to his successor.

One of our sources said Mr. Jonathan moved quickly to send powerful intercessors to the Presidency after the Buhari administration began to question massive last-minute withdrawals and disappearance of more than $20 billion in government funds orchestrated by former President Jonathan as well as his closest ministers and aides.

One source familiar with Mr. Anyaoku’s desperate mission to President Buhari revealed that the former Commonwealth chief executive urged the new president to remember that Mr. Jonathan voluntarily decided not to contest the results of the March 28, 2015 presidential election, won by Mr. Buhari, on the understanding that he and his administration would not be subjected to a probe.

Our sources disclosed that Mr. Anyaoku spent a little more than two hours in a close-door meeting yesterday where he sought to prevail on President Buhari to halt the ongoing probe of what happened to billions of public funds during the last few months of the Jonathan government.

Before imploring Mr. Anyaoku to plead with President Buhari, Mr. Jonathan had also asked former military head of state, Abdulsalam Abubakar, to speak to the current president and suggest a suspension of all ongoing probes. Mr. Buhari has put in place several investigative committees to probe the illicit withdrawal and disbursement of public funds by the Jonathan administration. The presidential committees are charged with advising the administration on strategies for retrieving any public assets stolen by officials and cohorts of the Jonathan Presidency.

One of the committees has already discovered that Mr. Jonathan and some members of his cabinet apparently colluded in the dying days of the previous government to loot billions of dollars. The funds were looted via the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Ministry of Finance, the Nigerian Maritime Authority, the Federal Capital Territory, and several other departments. A source within the investigative committee revealed that Mr. Jonathan and his closest aides and political appointees made illegal withdrawals of funds to finance his failed bid for re-election.

Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has stated that former President Jonathan asked her to withdraw more than $1.2 billion from the excess crude account. Even though Mrs. Okonji-Iweala continues to maintain publicly that she did nothing wrong during her tenure, a source told SaharaReporters that the former minister, who coordinated economic affairs during the former president’s tenure, has been quietly cooperative with the Buhari administration. According to the source, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has offered what amounts to a dossier of corrupt deals authorized by the former president.

In an attempt to curry favor with the new government, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala recently directed officials of her polling agency, NOI Polls, to give President Buhari a 70% approval rating among Nigerians. “The polling results were simply cooked up,” a professional pollster told SaharaReporters. Prior to the 2015 general elections, the former minister’s fake polling organization kept repeating that Mr. Jonathan approval rating was up even as his political fortune plummeted.

SaharaReporters also learned that former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, is also actively cooperating with the Buhari administration. As earlier revealed by us, Mrs. Alison-Madueke had struck a deal with the new government to submit a document to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) exposing her collaborators at the NNPC. The former Petroleum minister, who was one of the closest cabinet members to Mr. Jonathan—and the mastermind of numerous money laundering deals on behalf of the former president—currently shuttles between the UK and Switzerland. A source close to Mrs. Alison-Madueke said the former minister was receiving treatment in the UK related to breast cancer.

After emerging from his marathon meeting with Mr. Buhari yesterday, Mr. Anyaoku claimed that he had visited to offer “advice” to the president regarding his forthcoming official trip to the US. Mr. Buhari is scheduled to start his US trip on Sunday.

A source at the Presidency told SaharaReporters that Mr. Anyaoku had misrepresented the purpose of his visit. “The elder statesman [Anyaoku] did not come to advise Mr. President about the trip to the US. The plans for the trip were already concluded a while ago, with all logistics and programming support,” the source added.

Former President Jonathan is currently in Abuja where he remains in constant touch with Abdulsalam Abubakar and other political players to prevail on President Buhari to halt the probe of his administration.

One source at the Presidency revealed that Mr. Buhari was not receptive to Mr. Anyaoku’s pleas. According to the source, the president told the former Commonwealth chief executive that the massive theft of funds by officials of the previous administration had robbed him of funds to start meeting his promises to the Nigerian people. “The president’s concern is for everybody who stole funds, including the former president, to disclose their willingness to return their loot to the Nigerian people,” the source added.

Former Commonwealth Secretary, Anyaoku, At Jonathan’s Behest, Begs President Buhari Not To Probe Ex-President | http:///1K9p1Sy”

Congrats Karen.

it is normal for anyone to work with whoever he feels are competent. Gej appointed southerners in most of the above positions. We didn't complain. People should please let PMB work abeg.

My VP, my VP!

I thought you guys earlier said Jona was landing on the grasses in Bayelsa. So he had Helipad too? Very soon you guys will bring out the picture of Dame Patiences' own in Okirika.

Wickedness

Good.

Good one my president.

Opposites attract.

So who's not speaking the truth? Nonsense!

Do you know what trending is?

I wonder what would have happened to this country if Jonah won.

Mike's nose like his fathers.

Get well soon, Tonto

Serves APC right.

Interesting!

Lol

What's happening to tanker drivers this days? Too many accidents involving them. God please put a stop to this.

That sure p thing was a scam.